Bills Beat Blog

By Joe Buscaglia

Brought to you by:

Bills' Woods aiming for full return at mandatory minicamp

by Joe Buscaglia,posted May 29 2014 3:55PM

One of the most overwhelming stories to come out of the start of Organized Team Activities, nine different players on the Buffalo Bills roster had offseason surgeries that kept them out of team drills on the first day of work. One of those nine were Robert Woods, but his procedure won't keep him out too much longer, as long as he gets his way.

The ankle procedure was done by Dr. Robert Anderson in North Carolina, a noted surgeon that has done work on many NFL players in the past. The second-year wide receiver said it was done back in February, which means he's closing in on his return.

"The timetable is three months, which is around mandatory minicamp. I'm actually pretty much full-go, but they just want to stick to the schedule anyway, just to make sure," Woods told WGR after practice Thursday. "They just want to be safe and just keep pushing forward."

It was an arthroscopic procedure on his ankle that was recommended to remove scar tissue from the area. It wasn't from any injury suffered during the 2013 regular season, but from the ankle injury that required surgery in his time at USC.

Woods had a dialogue with the training staff before going under the knife.

"I didn't want to, I was debating with the trainers here and they wanted me to go forward and finally clean it out," he said. "The team said might as well clean it out. Sent me to the best surgeon, and he cleaned it out for me."

Now nearing the end of his projected rehab time, Woods will likely not be a full participant at these voluntary practices until the team's three-day mandatory minicamp on June 17. He doesn't believe he'll be in jeopardy of missing any time during training camp.